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Bill, Karl, Hillary and Mitt Sunday, Jul 29, 2007 By John Brummett A couple of big-time political journalists from Washington came to the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock the other night for another of those fine free lectures. If I read correctly between the lines of their hedged caution, they told a healthy crowd that we're apt to get a Hillary Clinton-Mitt Romney contest next year. John Harris and Mark Halperin are smart and accomplished young men who, it's clear, study modern American politics with personal and professional passion. While with The Washington Post, Harris wrote maybe the fairest and most thorough book on Bill Clinton's tumultuous presidency, called "The Survivor." Now he edits Politico. Halperin toils for Time as editor-at-large. He formerly was political director for ABC. Together they wrote "The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008," a book that says there are two modern ways to go. You have Bill Clinton politics, which is to mitigate the emotional wedge issues and seek prevailing centrist consensus. Then you have the Karl Rove politics (George W. not warranting a credit line on his own politics), at least the second time around in 2004. The Rove politics exploits divisive issues to mobilize the base and marginalize the opponent. The Clinton way sounds nobler, but, as Harris explained, it is entirely possible that Rove and his pals genuinely believe that the great emotional cultural divides - over gay marriage, for example - need to be well-defined. That's so that voters, otherwise disengaged and mushily moderate, will know what's really at stake. Harris and Halperin said that Hillary, of course, would be expected to rely on the Clinton politics. She's a founding senior partner, after all. But they said she's proving smart enough and deft enough to adapt to the current political climate, in which everything is about Iraq. That necessitates that she blend Rovian politics to play to the anti-war base. Halperin said that, once the nomination is secured, she'll likely emphasize her Senate record, which he called the most bipartisan in Congress. She'll return to Clinton politics exclusively, in other words. Halperin said Hillary was now in a position to win Iowa, then New Hampshire. He said he couldn't imagine her melting down as John McCain has. He said Barack Obama was her most stout and most impressive rival, and he gave Obama a 30 percent chance. He gave John Edwards less than that. He dismissed, for now, the rest of the field. Without saying so outright, he ceded a better than 50-50 chance to Hillary. Harris had just finished saying that modern presidential races are won by people who have spent their lives, or at least the adult portions, obsessing on how to do it. He meant Bill Clinton and Rove. This year, the chief adulthood obsesser would be Hillary. Obama has come along lately. Edwards spent much of his adulthood in private law practice. McCain might be the most life-obsessed on the Republican side, but, as these journalists explained, he ran using Clinton politics - which worked for George W.'s supposedly compassionate conservatism in 2000 - and the Republican base has made clear to him what he can do with that. The Rove school from 2004 is still operative on the Republican side, at least until the nomination. It's hard to imagine, though, what cultural wedge issues the Republicans might raise to marginalize Hillary more than she's marginalized already. A presidential race with her in it is embedded at 48-48 at the start. If you don't love her or hate her irrevocably already, you're not likely to be persuaded now. Speaking of the Republicans, Halperin said that Mitt Romney was the best positioned, currently ahead in polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Halperin said he'd once dismissed Rudy Giuliani's chances at zero, owing to his social liberalism, but had since revised that to about 30 percent. He said Hillary's people had, until a few months ago, most feared the now-troubled McCain. Of Fred Thompson, Halperin said simply: We'll see. The myth and mystique phase is drawing to a close. ------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
